A bill would enhance protections along levees and bypasses, as well as make it illegal to put up encampments on the structures, following a KCRA3 investigation.
Assembly member Jim Cooper, D-Elk Grove, authored AB 137, which would prohibit people from altering the stability of levees or bypasses, as well as prohibit people from living and camping on the structures. The legislation would make it a misdemeanor charge.
“I saw the story on KCRA3,” Cooper said. “For the past five or 10 years, we spent over $3 billion to shore up our levees. And we’ve seen levee breaks here in the Sacramento, San Joaquin Valley and how devastating it can be.”
A KCRA3 investigation found some encampments along Sacramento River levees in the Natomas area were digging and carving into the levee, posing a threat to thousands of homes on the floodplain.
“The encampment site was about 25 to 30 feet in width and went down about 4 or 5 feet,” said Kevin King, with Reclamation District 1000. “Unfortunately, when that happens, it does compromise the integrity of the levee.”
RD 1000 is responsible for the American and Sacramento river levees surrounding Natomas.
“The district has seen a rapid expansion in the encampment and excavation into the levee system over the last 18 to 24 months,” King said. “One of them was a set of sloped stairways as a walking path because some of the levee embankments are pretty steep. We felt that we needed some immediate help to make sure the levee system wasn’t at risk.”
RD 1000 identified three sites along a 6-mile stretch of levee that needed repairs and cleared roughly 80 encampments.
Read it all and see video at KCRA News: https://www.kcra.com/article/california ... l/28382533?
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